One of the most frequent metabolism diseases is diabetes mellitus, the main symptom of which is the disturbance of the balance of carbohydrate metabolism in the organism. Diabetes mellitus is often accompanied by pathological vascular deformations, e.g. vasoconstrictions in the limbs, pathological deformation of the eyeground vessels, etc. Though, in addition to insulin a large number of effective drugs are known, in the field of the treatment of diabetic angiopathy associated with the basic disease, results provided by the commercially available compositions are quite poor. This situation is caused by the phenomenon that diabetes mellitus results in changes of the vascular adrenergic receptors, and consequently, medical treatment with the commercially available drugs results in adrenegic reaction different from those taking place in the blood vessels of non-diabetic patients. (Nature New Biology, 243, No. 130, 276/1973/; Szemeszet, 111, 23/1974/; Endocrinology, 93, 752/1973/). The adrenergic receptors of blood vessels in diabetic patients undergo a transformation into beta receptors due to the quantitative increase of the metabolism. For the receptor transformation, the release of a modulator is responsible (Amer.J.Physiol., 218, 869/1970/). After addition of the modulator to the alpha organ the alpha agonists will not be active any more as the receptor is transformed into beta.
The original alpha sensibility may be recovered by adding a special beta blocking agent into the organism.
In case of qualitative alteration of the metabolism in model or human in vivo diabetes the alpha agonists, e.g. noradrenalin, remain effective, this effect, however, may be compensated by the addition of beta blocking agents. This is the first functional change which is detectable in diabetes, e.g. by addition of Alloxane (Hexahydropirimidin-tetraon), 24 hours after the administration. In case of diabetes an imperfect alpha-beta receptor transformation--possibly due to the formation of an alternative, so-called "Falsch" modulator--serves as starting point of the pathological changes.